


god, that was strange to see you again

by hogwarts



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: (netflix) no we didnt cast a kid who looks exactly like the girl who plays violet on PURPOSE, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-11-02 01:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hogwarts/pseuds/hogwarts
Summary: In which Lemony has a daughter, and so does his sister.





	god, that was strange to see you again

**Author's Note:**

> title from [your ex-lover is dead](https://genius.com/Stars-your-ex-lover-is-dead-lyrics)

Violet is two weeks old the first time he meets her, and he meets her on a cold day. This is lucky, because it gives him a better reason to shove his hands in the pockets of his coat besides hiding from Beatrice how they tremble. The wind whistles through the vents of the tunnel, nips at his cheeks and his ears as he walks; it makes the whole passageway smell damp, the way the rain-soaked leaves clinging to the pavement make the street over his head smell damp. He picks up the pace, brisk to match the weather.

The Baudelaire lot is old, but the Baudelaire mansion is new, and the apple trees sprouting in its front yard are still more twig and bud than tree. He knows this because his sister sent him a photo of it. He hasn’t passed that house, or walked down that street, or shown his face in that city, for quite some time.

Beatrice holds up a finger to her lips as she lowers herself rung by rung into the passageway, cupping one palm over her baby’s downy head where she’s fastened to her mother’s chest. Lemony opens his mouth to say Beatrice’s name, but she whispers another one before he can get out any sound. It bounces off the walls of the tunnel like a bullet.  _ Violet, Violet, Violet. _

She is so delicate, and she is so new, and Lemony is so afraid of her. 

_ Do the scary thing first, _ he thinks, lets Beatrice pass her baby swaddled and steady into his arms,  _ and get scared later.  _ Violet’s head settles heavily into the crook of his elbow; her little hand curls around his thumb. She doesn’t stir. Above their heads the city bustles, and a number of paces down this same passageway is an empty elevator shaft about to inspire a doomed marriage, and between him and Beatrice are so many unspoken words that it is perhaps better to say none of them at all. Violet is asleep to all of it. Lemony studies her face. A quivering spot of daylight, a tiny quiet triumph, in a world gone its wicked way.

It is a terrible thing, in that world, for someone to be yours and at the same time not. 

She lives up to her name as she grows, blossoming into a charming little girl and then a clever big sister and then a young woman who is anything but delicate, if only because she is already more broken than even she could ever fix. She is eighteen years old the second time he meets her. Her brother holds on to their little sister with one hand and bounces Lemony’s niece on his hip with the other, her little hand curling around his thumb, and Lemony opens his mouth to say her name. But it’s Violet who does the scary thing first, steps forward and raises her chin and levels him with a gaze icier than the wind tearing through the tunnels, and tells him to start explaining.

* * *

Beatrice is thirteen years old when she finds him waiting for her at the end of the tunnel. He didn’t hear her when she swung down through its trapdoor, didn’t see her as she sidestepped the shaft of watery daylight that followed on her heels, and so she has a moment of privacy now to look at him. What a victory, she thinks, to look at a man who tries so convincingly not to exist.

His hands hide in the pockets of his coat and his eyes are swallowed by shadow under the brim of his hat. The rest of his face is lit yellow by the glow of his cigarette. Of all the ways to die, she thinks bitterly. She ought to be bitter with him– angry, for herself and for every other person he has left alone. She ought to feel relieved that he is here, because a last hope is better than no hope at all. All she feels is the jump of her heartbeat in her throat.

The cigarette means that she sees him in the creases and lines of his face, and she sees that he is tired and worn, like a letter crumpled up and smoothed back out again. She sees him in his strong nose and heavy brows. How odd, she thinks, for someone to be a stranger and at once the opposite– how odd, the way he looks a little like herself, and a little like her mother in photographs, and a little like Violet in the back of her memory. The thought of this licks hot and stinging up her spine. Secrets stuffed into tea sets, secrets swept to the dark backs of drawers. If it weren’t for the secrets, they would still be at her side. Her Baudelaires.

If she doesn’t look back, she can pretend that they are standing just behind her. If she doesn’t look back, she can find the courage to step forward and say his name.

He lifts his head when he hears her boots against the cobblestone. “Beatrice?”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Got 25k words down so far on another asoue fic so this one is like when you have to clean the dried toothpaste out of your sink


End file.
